


A Start

by m_aur_a



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:56:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5475314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_aur_a/pseuds/m_aur_a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius messed up, once, a long time ago. Everything's changed since then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Start

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, I hope you like it!

It was completely Sirius’ fault. No excuses. No earth-shattering events to fall back on. Sirius just forgot—forgot about Remus, forgot the full moon, forgot the fact that one of his very best friends was literally ripping himself apart, for once without a black dog by his side. The boys had returned worse for wear; it was hard to keep a werewolf at bay as a deer and a rat.  
Sirius didn't have an excuse. It was the first time since he’s been disowned that he’d cried. Remus couldn’t look him in the eye, the beautiful selfless bronze boy could hardly bear to be in the same room as him, and Sirius didn’t have any fucking excuse. Peter took a day to meet his gaze. James gave him the cold shoulder for about five minutes before finally cracking and giving him a harsh berating that ended with Sirius sobbing on his shoulder, promising that whatever James could say he’d already told himself a hundredfold, promising he would fix what he’d torn apart.  
This was Sirius fixing it.  
The room was lit with the orange glow of sunset. Peter was tapping his wand in an irregular beat against his knee, unable to keep his hands still. Remus was doing his Astronomy homework, a spindly gold piece of equipment by his side, but could not seem to stop looking over at Sirius. His eyes gleamed bronze. James muttered a disinfecting charm, his wand hand shaking the tiniest bit.  
“I’m sure that you don’t really—“  
“Pete, I’m doing this.” Sirius cut in. Remus dropped his pretense of homework and turned his gaze solely on Sirius, a swallow and the muscle leaping in his jaw belying his stony exterior. Sirius met his gaze. “I won’t forget. Not ever again.” James swallowed, pressing four fingers against the inside of Sirius’ arm. Where he could hide it. Where he could see it.  
“Will this fix anything?” James asked. Sirius knew he was wondering if it was worth it, if having an inexperienced minor do this was worth it, just to get Remus’ trust back. Especially if it didn’t get his trust back.  
“It won’t fix it completely. But it’s a start.” Sirius looking up. It was the first time since that Remus had been able to talk near him. Something hot and steely clenched around Sirius’ heart at the naked hurt underneath Remus’ skin.  
“Do it.” Sirius’ voice came out breathy. James held his gaze for a long moment, glasses slipping down his nose, before picking up his wand. His hand did not tremble this time. Sirius passed the loose sheet of parchment across the bedsheets to him; it was covered in crossed-out potentials and scribbled words but one drawing was circled, multiple times in thick ink. That was the one James tapped, muttering an incantation as he did, and the image came floating up off the parchment, attached to the tip of James’ wand. Peter’s wand tapped more quickly. Remus’ breath had gone irregular. The drawing looked like a folded butterfly, gently swaying. Sirius tucked on hand behind his head, exposing the inside of his upper right arm.  
“Okay,” James muttered, bringing the tip of the folded gray image to the white, smooth skin there. He looked at the book spread open on the rumpled bed and took a breath. “Put the shirt in your mouth, Sirius,” he warned, and Sirius obligingly put a white undershirt between his teeth. He glanced over to Remus. His hands were bone-white and clenched around his knees. Sirius took out the shirt.  
“Give me a countdown, yeah?” James nodded. Sirius put in the shirt.  
“Here we go.Three,” Peter’s tapping reached a frantic pace.  
“Two,” Sirius met Remus’ eyes, and they held that gaze, silver-to-gold, guilt-to-hurt, promise-to-promise. I’ll-fix-it to it’s-a-start.  
“One.” Sirius broke his gaze to scream between his teeth as the image was seared into his skin; it felt like metal rods pressed to his flesh, his jaw so tight he felt that his teeth would simply fall out if he loosened it, his fists white, the tendons bare and hard on his neck.  
“Oh, Merlin, did I mess up? Oh gods no, Sirius, are you alright?” James had his shoulders, was following his face as he turned it, eyes desperate for contact. His glasses were nearly at the tip of his nose. Sirius got the urge to laugh even as it felt like his skin was blistering. He slowly unclenched his jaw, and the shirt fell onto the bed.  
“I think—“ Sirius cleared his throat, “I think you did perfectly.” He grinned shakily, and Peter gave a little whoop of happiness. The terror on James’ face eased. Sirius turned to Remus.  
The bronze boy looked horrified. Sirius felt something shrink inside of himself. His grin flickered off.  
“What’s wrong?” Sirius felt like jumping off the Gryffindor Tower. Would Remus hate him more now? Wasn’t this a start?  
“I didn’t know it would hurt you.” he said, a whisper, a shocked breath, as the sun slipped under the trees outside. Sirius blinked. Once, twice. A tiny smile etched itself into his face. He turned out his arm, displaying the image that was now part of his skin, a tattooed reminder. It was a moon, halfway full. If James had done everything right, it would change with the days. He would always know when Remus turned.  
“Let me see it,” Remus said, not looking away from the moon now inked into Sirius’ arm, tracing his eyes over its craters and lines. Sirius hopped off the bed, stopped in front of Remus, held his arm where the werewolf could see it. Rough fingers traced its circle, stopping in the eyes of the man on the moon. Remus looked up and held Sirius’ gaze.  
“A start?” Sirius’ voice crumbled around the words, something aching in the back of his throat. Remus looked at him for two breaths.  
“A start.” and he smiled.

 

Years later, Sirius was hunched in a cell in Azkaban. The dementors floated past; knowing there was not all that much they could take from him, they moved to cells with bigger feasts. Sometimes the screams were unbearable. Tonight it was something else that had Sirius in the back corner of his cell, his head pressed against the cold rock wall. He turned over his arm, looking at the upper inside, were the white skin had a blossom of a sharp image on it. A full moon, stained onto his skin, his arm, his bone, he was sure; black and gray.  
Tonight, across the world, Remus ripped himself to shreds. He did it alone, believing two of the best friends he ever had were dead and that the other one killed them. He traced a bone of a finger around the moon, into the craters, the eyes where Remus had put his bronze fingers, the ache he’d felt so many years before building in his throat as it did every month. Whenever the moon was full, and he knew that his friend, the beautiful bronze man who had chosen to love him was hurt and tired and betrayed.  
A dementor blew past; it paused and turned its hooded head. Perhaps, Sirius thought, his pain was stronger now. It was a miserable thought. He slipped quietly into Padfoot, the black dog with a white marking on its right leg. The guard drifted off.  
Sirius howled for the rest of the night.

 

“Remus,” Sirius murmured, the werewolf’s hands on his hips, through his hair; the ghost of his breath behind Sirius’ ear, down his neck. Remus looked up into Sirius’ half-open eyes; he was flushed and so pretty, Sirius thought; the light from the streetlamp outside making him golden, his scars white. Remus looked at him like he was a lost artifact, priceless, from a world very far away, and it made Sirius want to cry.  
“I never wanted—I was so angry—I didn't think I’d be taken—“ he was cut off by the press of chapped lips against his own, by Remus’ insistent hands gripping at his shirt. Sirius was pushed back against the peeling wallpaper of Grimmauld Place. The air was hot with their breaths and fulfilled promises; kissing Remus was like heaven, even if there was a war on, even if they’d both been betrayed, even if it was a dozen years too late. Sirius had missed many things in Azkaban, but he might’ve missed the sound Remus made when he kissed down his neck the most of all.  
“I know, I know, I know, gods Sirius all that time I felt like a monster because I could never hate you,” Remus breathed. His hands were roaming under Sirius’ shirt know. Sirius felt lie his knees were going to buckle. Remus never hated him. He could soar to the moon.  
“Let me see it,” Remus murmured against the grin on Sirius’ face—Moony never hated him!—a crack of a smile on his own. Sirius looked at him in confusion, but Remus was unbuttoning Sirius’ robes with trembling fingers, pulling down his sleeve on the right arm, pushing up his undershirt, looking at the nearly-full moon with an indecipherable look on his face.  
“I cried every full moon,” Sirius confessed to Moony’s downcast eyes. Remus looked up; there was pain in his eyes, but that was to be expected. Keeping his golden eyes locked on with Sirius’ silver ones, he carefully kissed the moon, its dark and light sides, its craters, the eyes of the man in the moon. He did it so tenderly, so softly and achingly, that Sirius felt his heart break.  
“We’ll be alright, won’t we?” he asked, perhaps naively; there was a war going on. But Remus hummed and smiled against the tattoo, breaking away from it to press his forehead to Sirius’. He recognized the rebellious Gryffindor schoolboy in that moment; the boy from so may years ago; the boy he’d fallen in love with. He put his hands on either side of Sirius’ face, stroking his elegant cheekbones.  
“Eventually, I think we will be.” He didn’t look away from Sirius; his silver eyes gleamed with tears. Remus felt them prickling in his own eyes.  
“Is this a start?” Sirius asked, quietly; and they weren’t in a musty room in Grimmauld Place anymore. They were in a Gryffindor dorm room, it was sunset, and Peter was tapping with his wand, and James’ glasses had slipped down his nose, and Remus’ Astronomy homework sat unfinished on his desk, and nobody had betrayed anybody and everyone was alive. Tears were dripping onto Remus’ hands, down his own cheeks.  
“It’s a start.” Remus said, and locked in the light of the streetlamp, two men grieved for a night far away; for the huge, beautiful thing they had lost.


End file.
